Circle of Joachim Wtewael

The mythological story of The Judgment of Paris was a subject regularly explored by Joachim Wtewael and his contemporaries around the turn of the seventeenth century, the theme lending itself well to the Dutch Mannerist movement of the period, one defined by elegant forms, classical subjects, and refined techniques. 

The particular composition of the present picture relates closely to two autograph examples known by Wtewael both of comparable dimensions and also on copper, one in the Cleveland Museum of Art¹ and another in the Staatliche Kunsthalle in Karlsruhe. In this composition, a group of figures and animals are set within a landscape. Paris is seated at right, offering the apple to Venus, beside whom is the small figure of Cupid who looks up towards Mercury above. In the lower left corner are Juno, Minerva, Ceres and Bacchus, while a river god reclines in the lower right corner.  

In her 1986 catalogue raisonné, Dr. Anne Lowenthal lists nine copies of this composition, a further testament to the popularity of this particular scene.³ A related drawing is today preserved in the National Museum of Oslo,⁴ and the composition was also engraved by Pierre-Louis Surugue le Files.⁵  

1. Inv. no. 84.14, oil on copper 15.8 by 21 cm. See A. Lowenthal, Joachim Wtewael and Dutch Mannerism, Doornspijk 1986, p. 101, cat. no. A-21, reproduced plate 32.  https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1984.14 

2. Inv. no. 2730, oil on copper, 17.1 by 21.3 cm.  Lowenthal 1986, p. 102, cat. no. A-22, reproduced plate 33.  https://rkd.nl/en/explore/images/279329 

3. Lowenthal 1986, pp. 168-169, cat. nos. C-39, C-40, C-41, C-42, C-42a, C-43, C-44, C-45, C-47.   

4. Inv. no. NG.K&H.B.15593. Pen and brown ink with grey wash, 15.9 by 21 cm. https://www.nasjonalmuseet.no/en/collection/object/NG.K_H.B.15593

5.  This engraving was previously misattributed to Goltzius.  https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1891-0511-85